The South Indian actor turns 32 today. Send in your wishes!

Born on July 6, 1981, Nikita Thukral aka Nikitha celebrates her 32nd birthday today. You’ve got to hand it to her, a Punjabi girl from Mumbai, who made a place for herself in the South Indian film industry, acting in all the southern languages. She’s shown tremendous staying power, clocking over a decade in the industry. What’s more, she’s braved slurs to her reputation and even a ban imposed by the Karnataka Film Producers Association and kept going.

The girl, who was spotted quite by accident and given a role in the Telugu Hai in 2002, is currently busy with Apartment in Tollywood and Priyasakha and Cottonpet in Kannada. Her other recent films have been the Karthi-starrer Alex Pandian and the period film, Krantiveera Sangolli Rayanna, starring Darshan.

Interestingly, it was her association with Darshan that provoked the brief ban on Nikita by Kannada film producers. Darshan’s wife alleged that Nikita was causing trouble in her marriage and the official body took the decision to boycott Nikitha. But the rest of the film fraternity rallied around Nikita and she resumed work.

The film is a sincere attempt to capture the travails of life

Making a commercial movie with a strong message is no easy task. Filmmaker Saravanan, a former associate of director AR Murugadoss, has managed to make a classy debut. He has not let down his mentor, who interestingly has produced the venture along with Hollywood giant Fox Star Studios.

Engeyum Eppodhum is a simple and sincere attempt to capture the travails of life, loss and grief. The movie runs on two parallel tracks, which then overlap in a bus journey. The plot revolves around Gautham (Sharvanand), Amudha (Ananya), Kadhiresan (Jai) and Manimegalai (Anjali). Amudha, who hails from a village near Tiruchi, meets Gautham when she comes to Chennai on a job hunt. Cupid comes into play then. Then there is Kadhiresan, an innocent and simple-hearted youth, who falls head over heels in love for the chirpy Manimegalai, a nurse.

The filmmaker narrates the journey of these couples in an interesting manner and in a lighter vein. Their vehicles collide and the events thereafter make up the movie.

Anjali comes up with an impressive performance once again. Ananya too has come out with a robust show, continuing from her good role in Naodigal. Sharvanand and Jai have done justice to characters tailormade for them.

Sathya’s tunes are nice and background score is apt. R Velraj’s camera captures the essence of the movie. With the help of a strong cast and crew, the movie is impressive from the word go, despite a sluggish pace hurting its rhythm at times.